Regardless of having lived in america for many of her while, Libianca is unmistakably pleased with her Cameroonian heritage.

The Afrosoul famous person was once presented to the sector generation making a song in a Cameroonian pronunciation – in 2022 she dropped her daily American cadence for the career-launching, globally-charting crash that was once Public.

On Fb, Libianca’s bio proudly declares “IT’S LIBIANCA FROM BAMENDA”. The phrases are a nod to her population’s house town and the playground the place she spent more or less six years of her adolescence.

Lots of Libianca’s enthusiasts in Cameroon love optical their nation showcased at the global degree – they’ve been overflow the singer’s social media feedback with the nationwide flag and the abbreviate “CM”.

However now not everybody now not everybody from the Central African people feels this fashion. Latter age, the musician introduced she was once suspending her North American excursion as a result of she had gained demise blackmails for acting with a Cameroonian flag.

The blackmails, greater than 50 of them, were despatched by means of rebels who need English-speaking portions of Cameroon, like Bamenda, to turn out to be an detached atmosphere.

“They were sent all over social media… there was a lot in my management email,” the singer, complete identify Libianca Kenzonkinboum Fonji, tells the BBC.

“Some pretty horrific ones and some that threw in insults threatening me to never step foot in Cameroon or they would kill me on-site.”

The separatists interpreted Libianca’s waving of the Cameroon flag as a display of backup for President Paul Biya, one of the vital longest-serving leaders in Africa.

For over six years, separatist warring parties have fought a gruelling warfare towards the government, ruled by means of the French-speaking majority.

The struggle, which has claimed no less than 6,000 lives, is rooted in grievances held by means of many within the English-speaking portions of western Cameroon.

They’ve felt marginalised for many years and stop what they see as makes an attempt by means of Mr Biya’s govt to power them to surrender their means of while, together with their language, historical past, training and criminal programs.

When pronouncing the postponement of her excursion, Libianca advised her 500,000 Instagram fans that she confronted a “relentless pressure to take sides” in a warfare she “hates”.

“There’s always a side to be on and I’m just not on either,” she tells the BBC.

“Because both of them include violence and I’m not about violence, I’m about love.”